He really was becoming something of a relic he thought as he sulked around the half filled apartment building in Lower Manhattan. It's not like he had anything to do any more. Everything was electronic, people called or buzzed everyone in and out. Yet still he sat there every night. Midnight to seven in the morning, five days a week, for the past thirty years. Something that had started as a curiosity of what it would be like had turned into a career. Could you call it a career, if you have had the same job for its entirety? Usually a career meant advancement and the development of skills, just movement of any kind. Well technically a basketball player has the same role his whole career, but then again he's not Jordan, or even LeBron, or hell even JJ Reddick. No he just suited up for 30 years. That's gotta be worth something.
In his youth he had a strange desire to see what it was like to do odd jobs. Now these were odd jobs, not the trendy fun ones people have one TV, but board line undesirable ones, like a night door man or a long haul trucker. It was this desire that lead him to work at Chrystal Views. Built in the early 90s it had a very Trump-like facade. I.E. it kind looked flashy and elegant for a split second if you driving as fast as you possibly could and liked fake gold. However it was still hanging around, when buildings of its elk had been demolished to build more luxurious accommodations.
"Good Evening, Mr Rosemont," Otis said to hammered thirty something man who stumbled into the lobby. He might an attempt to speak but decided on an awkward eyes closed head til and three tooth showing smirk.
This was usually Mr. Rosemont's greeting. He had married young, right out of college and it didn't end well. He moved in about a year or two earlier and was still attempting to live the life of a much younger man. However the divorce robbed him of the money to be able to really do it right or woo the company of a younger attractive woman. Which was clearly his goal upon arrival, however after what was probably thousands of rejections he had switched to just getting three sheets to the wind every night he could. Otis thought or maybe hoped that someone in his family or friends would say something maybe imply he had a problem. Then again he didn't seem to have that many friends.
His busiest was usually around two to three, when the bars closed, however since Covid and the pandemic he rarely saw anyone. He thought it was only a matter of time till they told him he had to go. After all he had also been living their nearly rent free for the past twenty years. This had also been one the main reasons he probably stayed as long as he did. There was a basement's basement apartment that went to a member of the staff who was willing to take calls or problems 24/7, and who better to handle it than the guy whose already there all night.
Even though he was in his late fifties he still felt he could pass for thirty seven and despite being a over six foot he still felt he could blend in and disappear. He had been through a lot even if he'd stayed in the same place. But that was the city, one that was always moving and changing. Himself as well, he developed a nice coke problem in the early nineties, like most of the rest of the city, that changed when the bubble broke in 07 and he had to take the one pay cut of his career. However with a no rent or mortgage he didn't have it so bad. His cut of the Christmas tips for those years was much leaner but he didn't mind.
RAN OUT OF TIME -- setting a 24 hour limit on the initially writing of the story.
Not sure where this one was headed thought.